e_. of
consolidation by means of heat, and by means of water alone,) than
his observation upon the case of mineral alkali. To that irrefragable
argument (which Dr Black suggested) in proof of this substance having
been in a state of fusion in the mineral regions, our author makes the
following reply; "What then will our author say of the vast masses
of this salt which are found with their full quantity of water of
crystallization?"--There is in this proposition, insignificant as it may
seem, a confusion of ideas, which it certainly cannot be thought worth
while to investigate; but, so far as the doctrine of the aqueous theory
may be considered as here concerned, it will be proper that I should
give some answer to the question so triumphantly put to me.
Our author is in a mistake in supposing that Dr Black had written any
thing upon the subject; he had only suggested the argument of this
example of mineral alkali to me, as I have mentioned; and, the use I
made of that argument was to corroborate the example I had given of sal
gem. If, therefore, our author does not deny the inference from the
state of that mineral alkali, his observation upon it must refer to
something which this other example of his is to prove on the opposite
side, or to support the aqueous instead of the igneous theory; and, this
is a subject which I am always willing to examine in the most impartial
manner, having a desire to know the true effect of aqueous solution in
the consolidation of mineral bodies, and having no objection to allow it
any thing which it can possibly produce, although denying that it can do
every thing, as many mineralists seem to think.
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